With an overwhelming new mandate, Magyar pledged to cooperate with other European countries, ending Orbán-era obstruction of Europe-wide policies, while also representing Hungarians’ wishes.

At a news conference Monday in Budapest, he promised to restore rule of law and overhaul government structures to make them more independent and able to fight corruption, and to create new ministries to address acute problems in areas like public health, environmental protection and education.

He said he opposes fast-track EU membership for Ukraine while the country is still in a war. But he suggested he wouldn’t veto a 90-billion-euro EU loan for Ukraine, as Orbán did, and instead wants Hungary to ″opt out″ of participating in the loan because of its own financial struggles.

He didn’t immediately address his eventual relations with U.S. President Donald Trump, who supported Orbán’s campaign.

Magyar said his Tisza party received “a never-before-seen mandate,’’ a super-majority that would allow it to embark on ambitious program and reforms.

“The Hungarian people didn’t vote for a simple change of government, but for a complete change in regime,” he said.

In his campaign, Magyar also pledged to end Hungary’s drift toward Russia. On Monday, Magyar thanked Moscow and Beijing for offering their congratulations and willingness to work with Hungary’s new government.

“Hungarians said yesterday they will write their history, not in Moscow, not in Beijing, not in Washington,” he added.

During his long time in office, Orbán ruled with the power of a two-thirds parliamentary majority, allowing him to pass a new constitution, rewrite the electoral system and reshape the judiciary.

Magyar’s party secured exactly such a mandate Sunday when it won 138 of parliament’s 199 seats, giving it broad authority to undo much of the legislation that allowed Orbán to stack the courts, manipulate the electoral system, crack down on press freedom and discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community.

Still, there are potential pitfalls that could stand in the way of the radical changes many Hungarians had hoped for.

Historic win

Magyar’s victory was met with jubilation on the streets of Budapest late Sunday with tens of thousands, many of them young people, celebrating what they view as a ray of hope that Orbán’s loss will make Hungary freer, happier and firmly rooted within the fold of European democracies.

On streets and avenues across the capital, drivers blared car horns and cranked up anti-government songs while people marching in the streets chanted and screamed.

During the celebrations, Adrien Rixer said he’d come back to Hungary from his home in London “because I really wanted to make my vote count, and I’m over the moon.”

“Finally I can say that I’m a proud Hungarian, finally after 16 years,” he said.

Many Hungarians, and others across Europe who were closely watching the election, had feared that a simple majority for Tisza would have been inadequate to truly transform Orbán’s system.

Yet others remain uncertain about what the authority of a two-thirds majority will bring, with some uneasy about taking such a mandate from Orbán and delivering it to his opponent.

“Its hard to see that with two-thirds that it’s going to be a fair government, but we will see,” said reveller Dániel Kovács. “Lets hope that it’s going to be a promising four years.”

The election win for Magyar and Tisza was without precedent in Hungary’s post-Communist history: They received more votes and more parliamentary seats than any party ever had before.

Bulcsú Hunyadi, an analyst with the Budapest-based think tank Political Capital, said that while Tisza’s constitutional majority gives it broad powers to roll back many of Orbán’s policies, Hungary’s key institutions are “led by people who are cemented in their position for many years.”

As part of his broader effort to consolidate control over Hungary’s democratic system, Orbán installed loyal allies at the helm of key institutions, from the media authority to the public prosecutor’s office and the Constitutional Court.

In several cases, mandates were extended or new appointments pushed through before existing terms had expired — moves that effectively kept loyal leadership locked in place for years, well beyond any potential change in government.

Magyar called for such officials — including Hungary’s president — to step down of their own accord. Beyond that, Hunyadi said, “they don’t really have any other tools to remove these people.”

Pressure from the EU

Magyar accuses Orbán and his government of mismanaging Hungary’s economy and social services, and overseeing unchecked corruption he says has led to the accumulation of extreme wealth within a small circle of well-connected insiders while leaving ordinary Hungarians behind.

He’s vowed to hold such abuses to account, and plans to create an Office for the Recovery and Protection of National Assets to reclaim what he says are Orbán’s allies’ ill-gotten gains.

Magyar campaigned heavily on a promise to bring home billions of euros in European Union funding that has been frozen over corruption and rule-of-law concerns under Orbán. He’s also pledged to introduce the euro to Hungary by 2030 — something Orbán’s government long resisted.

Hunyadi, the analyst, said Magyar’s government will be under “tight pressure” by the EU to quickly carry out reforms in order to get access to those frozen funds that are badly needed by Hungary’s faltering economy.

“There are deadlines in terms of unfreezing the funds. They will have to deliver certain laws and reforms by August this year, which is only a few months away,” he said.

Tisza’s win raised hopes across the EU that a new government in Budapest would reverse Orbán’s antagonistic approach to Ukraine and his obstruction of efforts to assist the war-ravaged country as it defends against Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Orbán has used his veto power in the EU to stymie sanctions on Russia and block crucial funding to Kyiv. He’s also vowed never to allow talks on Ukraine joining the EU to resume.

In a statement on Monday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Orbán’s election campaign, “which unfortunately was marked by manipulative rhetoric about Ukraine, is now behind us.”

“We expect that … the election results will also contribute to a normalization of political relations,” Sybiha said.

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BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union countries on Wednesday agreed on a new package of sanctions against Russia for its war against Ukraine aimed at countering sanctions circumvention through third countries and businesses.

The EU had previously imposed 10 rounds of sanctions on Russia since President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Banks, companies and markets have been hit — even parts of the sensitive energy sector. More than 1,000 officials are subject to asset freezes and travel bans.

Much work in the latest batch of sanctions has involved closing loopholes so that goods vital to Putin’s war effort don’t get through via nations that trade with the EU and have maintained a business-as-usual relationship with Moscow.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU’s executive arm, said the new package will “deal a further blow to Putin’s war machine with tightened export restrictions, targeting entities supporting the Kremlin.”

“Our anti-circumvention tool will prevent Russia from getting its hands on sanctioned goods,” she added.

It is the first time that plans have been announced to target trade via other countries, apart from sanctions against Iranians alleged to be supplying drones to Russia.

It also prohibits the transit via Russia of products and technologies which might help boost its defense and security sector.

Under the latest package, if the EU sees for example that exports of a certain computer chip increase five-fold to one nation, and then sees that such exports from the country increase by about the same amount to Russia, the bloc would be able to take tougher action to end the practice.

The new package specifically allows the implementation of measures restricting the sale, or export of sensitive dual-use goods and technology to third countries who could then transfer them to Russia. Under the new rules, the EU could exert much more pressure to end the practice than before.

“It does give a big stick with which the EU can say: ‘please don’t do it,’ and then, if it continues we go to restrictive measures,” said an official from an EU nation on condition of anonymity because the rules had yet to be published in the EU’s official journal.

The rules cannot be excessively rigid, since the EU does not want to immediately alienate nations.

“We need to look for a balance with nations. When we address their bad behavior, we have to make sure we don’t immediately drive them into the arms of Putin,” the official said.

The new package will also target 71 extra persons and 33 entities in relation with the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Also included is the prohibition to access to ports in the EU by vessels engaged in ship-to-ship transfers when there is a suspicion that a boat is not respecting the ban on importing seaborne Russian crude oil and petroleum products into the bloc.

In addition, the package extends the suspension of the broadcasting licenses in the EU of five Russian media outlets under state control.

Past sanctions have been agreed on in just months — extremely quickly for the EU. But new measures are becoming increasingly hard to endorse as they inflict damage on the economic and political interests of some member countries even as they aim for the Kremlin.

Hungary, for instance, had said earlier this week it wouldn’t allow EU measures targeting Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom, insisting on the importance of nuclear energy for Europe’s security and environmental goals.

Hungary signed new agreements in April to ensure its continued access to Russian energy, a sign of the country’s continuing diplomatic and trade ties with Moscow that have confounded some European leaders amid the war in Ukraine.

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